Adaforge?

Adaforge?

[mockturtle]

Dear.all, 
I have some crazy thoughts that I would like to share with you... :-)

Recently, a post on the LinkedIn group "Ada Programming Language," made me think that an ingredient that can help the spreading of a programming language is a variety of libraries.  I confess :-) that sometimes I use Ruby and in the past I worked also in PERL (but only with version 4! :-) and I found it very convenient to have access to many libraries (of variegate quality, to be honest) ready to use.

I understand that some of us write their own libraries (I see every now and then announcements on this group), so I was wondering if it could be worth to try to collect all this stuff in a centralized place, kind of "rubyforge" for Ruby.  I have a faint memory of a "adaforge.com," but it seems that the domain has no owner currently.  I also have an half a memory of some half-sleeping Ada software repositories, but I could be wrong.

Maybe it would be cool if the site could offer some hosting with tools like forum, mailing lists, ... (i.e., like rubyforge or sourceforge), but since there are already few repositories around, it would be nice if the site could also act as a "portal" toward other repositories.  

  [ An example of what I meant in the last sentence: suppose you have your project Cool_Ada_Library registered on sourceforge, instead of moving the whole project to adaforge, you could register  Cool_Ada_Library to adaforge as an "external" project.  Adaforge will handle your project as any other project, but it will show that is externally hosted by, for example, showing the sourceforge logo somewhere ] 

A special feature of adaforge (related with the "safe-oriented" nature of Ada) could be that each project will have a "certification" about the "safety" (in the sense you like) of the software.  For example, the lowest level could be given to  projects with no test procedures, an higher level to projects with full-coverage test, and maybe the highest level to projects checked with Spark.

Of course, you could object that I can register my project on some generic site like sourceforge, but I think that a specific site could give to Ada projects a better visibility.  (Actually, some languages like PERL and Ruby have their own specialized open repositories).

So, those were my wishes, how can we make them true?  Well, there are few questions that need an answer

* I am not aware about a central repository for Ada open source software, but maybe I just did not find it. Are you aware of some initiative like the one I just described?

* Maybe some of the current repositories could be improved to promote them to create this adaforge service.  Is this feasible?

* Another option is to create the service from scratch, finding some good guy/girl that can host and maintain the site.  I work in a University and I think I would not have many problems to ask for some space on our servers, but I have no experience with building and maintaining open source repositories, so I cannot promise that I will do all by myself...

That's all, folks.  Just do not flame me too strongly... ;-)

Riccardo

Re: Adaforge?

[Jerrid Kimball]

Hello

We've absolutely discussed exactly this on IRC[1] and had extensive 
discussion of what a site of this calibre would include. I have been 
interested in community building for longtime[2], but have really lacked 
the time necessary to write the tools for it. I hadn't considered 
ranking software by perceived safety.  I already have an instance of GNU 
Mailman setup for Dragonlace (a fantastic project bringing GNAT's 
capabilities to modern BSDs) and my own website.  I've also offered to 
host repositories as well albeit the process is not automated and only 
DragonLace and an RM Reformatter[3] tool are hosted there.

What I'm saying is that there's clearly a desire to make something like 
this; I know there is support for it on IRC.  One of the biggest 
problems facing a new-comer is finding libraries.  I still plan to 
create a freshmeat like listing of Ada code.

In the meantime, the best part of the site is Planet Ada! which is 
mostly the Thomas Locke show; I recently rethemed it, but it could use 
more Ada blogs.

Cheers


[1] #ada on irc.freenode.net
[2] I even have a website ada.cx. CX became a backronym for Community 
Exchange. Members of [1] contributed ideas for the tld acronym expansion.
[3] Because the yellow 1990s design of the RM makes normal people vomit, 
the idea was to make the RM more approachable and to fit into a themed 
website.  Oliver Kleinke has graciously spent his time to make it happen.

On 04/28/2012 09:14 AM, mockturtle wrote:
> Dear.all,
> I have some crazy thoughts that I would like to share with you... :-)
>
> Recently, a post on the LinkedIn group "Ada Programming Language," made me think that an ingredient that can help the spreading of a programming language is a variety of libraries.  I confess :-) that sometimes I use Ruby and in the past I worked also in PERL (but only with version 4! :-) and I found it very convenient to have access to many libraries (of variegate quality, to be honest) ready to use.
>
> I understand that some of us write their own libraries (I see every now and then announcements on this group), so I was wondering if it could be worth to try to collect all this stuff in a centralized place, kind of "rubyforge" for Ruby.  I have a faint memory of a "adaforge.com," but it seems that the domain has no owner currently.  I also have an half a memory of some half-sleeping Ada software repositories, but I could be wrong.
>
> Maybe it would be cool if the site could offer some hosting with tools like forum, mailing lists, ... (i.e., like rubyforge or sourceforge), but since there are already few repositories around, it would be nice if the site could also act as a "portal" toward other repositories.
>
>    [ An example of what I meant in the last sentence: suppose you have your project Cool_Ada_Library registered on sourceforge, instead of moving the whole project to adaforge, you could register  Cool_Ada_Library to adaforge as an "external" project.  Adaforge will handle your project as any other project, but it will show that is externally hosted by, for example, showing the sourceforge logo somewhere ]
>
> A special feature of adaforge (related with the "safe-oriented" nature of Ada) could be that each project will have a "certification" about the "safety" (in the sense you like) of the software.  For example, the lowest level could be given to  projects with no test procedures, an higher level to projects with full-coverage test, and maybe the highest level to projects checked with Spark.
>
> Of course, you could object that I can register my project on some generic site like sourceforge, but I think that a specific site could give to Ada projects a better visibility.  (Actually, some languages like PERL and Ruby have their own specialized open repositories).
>
> So, those were my wishes, how can we make them true?  Well, there are few questions that need an answer
>
> * I am not aware about a central repository for Ada open source software, but maybe I just did not find it. Are you aware of some initiative like the one I just described?
>
> * Maybe some of the current repositories could be improved to promote them to create this adaforge service.  Is this feasible?
>
> * Another option is to create the service from scratch, finding some good guy/girl that can host and maintain the site.  I work in a University and I think I would not have many problems to ask for some space on our servers, but I have no experience with building and maintaining open source repositories, so I cannot promise that I will do all by myself...
>
> That's all, folks.  Just do not flame me too strongly... ;-)
>
> Riccardo

Re: Adaforge?

[Simon Wright]

Jerrid Kimball <jerrid@kimball.co> writes:

> [3] Because the yellow 1990s design of the RM makes normal people
> vomit, the idea was to make the RM more approachable and to fit into a
> themed website

Huh?

As a normal person myself (IMO), I'd like to say that "themed website"
sounds as though it could well mean "dangerously repellent mess".

Re: Adaforge?

[Stephen Leake]

mockturtle <framefritti@gmail.com> writes:

> Recently, a post on the LinkedIn group "Ada Programming Language,"
> made me think that an ingredient that can help the spreading of a
> programming language is a variety of libraries. I confess :-) that
> sometimes I use Ruby and in the past I worked also in PERL (but only
> with version 4! :-) and I found it very convenient to have access to
> many libraries (of variegate quality, to be honest) ready to use.

Debian is one candidate for that; it enforces compatibility among the
packages and compiler, making installation simpler. It already has all
the rest of the infrastructure (mailing lists, web sites, etc); possibly
not as user-friendly as some others.

Failing that, the ada-france monotone repository is a good place for
collecting lots of packages (monotone is _great_ CM system!). It doesn't
have a user-friendly website, though.

For a website, I suggest using the Indefero tools
(http://www.indefero.net/); the monotone project uses them
(https://code.monotone.ca/ but you can't see much without a login).

> I understand that some of us write their own libraries (I see every
> now and then announcements on this group), so I was wondering if it
> could be worth to try to collect all this stuff in a centralized
> place, kind of "rubyforge" for Ruby. I have a faint memory of a
> "adaforge.com," but it seems that the domain has no owner currently. I
> also have an half a memory of some half-sleeping Ada software
> repositories, but I could be wrong.

As usual, what is lacking is someone with time and energy to actually
maintain the site.

It's probably easier to become a Debian Maintainer than to maintain an
entire website (I've done a little bit of both), so you should consider
doing that, and offer to package other people's projects for Debian.

On the other hand, if your skills lie more in the web domain than the
Ada coding domain, maybe a web site would be easier. Have at it!

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: Adaforge?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Sun, 29 Apr 2012 10:44:36 -0400, Stephen Leake wrote:

> mockturtle <framefritti@gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> Recently, a post on the LinkedIn group "Ada Programming Language,"
>> made me think that an ingredient that can help the spreading of a
>> programming language is a variety of libraries. I confess :-) that
>> sometimes I use Ruby and in the past I worked also in PERL (but only
>> with version 4! :-) and I found it very convenient to have access to
>> many libraries (of variegate quality, to be honest) ready to use.
> 
> Debian is one candidate for that;

I bet that most Ada users are under Windows. The resource must be
platform-agnostic.

> it enforces compatibility among the
> packages and compiler, making installation simpler. It already has all
> the rest of the infrastructure (mailing lists, web sites, etc); possibly
> not as user-friendly as some others.

I think that GPS might become a better vehicle than ugly deb-packages. It
is fairly simple and, most importantly, portable to integrate a custom
library into GPS/GPRBuild. And it is 100% Ada (It is really no fun to fight
dpkg-deb or, for that matter, rpmbuild). The major obstacle for
GPS/GPRBuild is that they are not always available.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Adaforge?

[mockturtle]

Dear all,
I need to run to a conference.  I just wanted to say that I am happy to see this positive feedback.  I will back with you in few days.

Riccardo

Re: Adaforge?

[Patrick]

Hi  Riccardo

I strongly support your suggestion. I am not attacking Adacore or the efforts of others but there are several things that might be frightening off newcomers to the language and your proposal might really help offset this.

As someone new myself, I have been worried as to why:

-Many Ada sites have a circa 1995 look to the them

-Many of these sites talk about Ada 95 furthering the outdated fears

-A private company seems to be the centre of the Ada and profit has to 
be their goal 

-Many of these sites have dead links


If we had an AdaForge site that was/had:

-A modern look and feel
-Highlighted projects that were not mission critical/military
-Highlighted Ada's usefulness on multicore machines
-highlighted a not-for-profit effort
-highlighted projects that were mixed with other languages
-highlight the open source compiler


and linked to current resources like books, tutorials etc, it would dispel some of the fears. One thing that helped me overcome by early concerns was the fact that Ada is used in long term projects and projects just launched like the 787 plane. Even if all the Ada libraries die off the GNAT compiler should be maintained for quite some time, perhaps 20+ years ?

If we posted information like this on the home page it might help stop the FUD.

I don't consider myself much of a graphic designer but I would be happy to hack together a static site that could generate discussions about the look and feel of the site to come. Nothing would have to be accepted into the new site.

LuaForge also has a lot of projects in various states of usefulness too. They used Perl for their first LuaForge but it broke. Now they are using a Sputnik backed site:
http://sputnik.freewisdom.org/

It's written in Lua. We might have to use another language to drive the site as Ada doesn't seem to have much of a following in the web space. Perhaps later we could redo it with an Ada backend later.


Anyhow, thanks for bring this up! -Patrick

Re: Adaforge?

[Micronian Coder]

Hi Patrick,

I like the points you have made and have felt the same about some them for a quite a while. A few I would like to comment on are :

[1] A private company seems to be the center of the Ada and profit has to be their goal 

   I really like AdaCore and if it wasn't for GNAT, I would never have gotten in to Ada. One of the arguments of Ada has been that it is very portable. I've raised some concern in the past with colleagues about long term projects being implemented in Java or C# because each of those are basically controlled by one company and keep changing too frequently (remember all those "deprecated" Java warnings). However, if it is perceived that AdaCore = Ada, then it would be less effective as an argument. In reality, there are still other compilers. However, it is a shame that most, namely Aonix (now Atego), DDC-I, Green Hills, Janus/Ada, are still stuck at Ada95 (note: it still is a very good language of course), so it can be perceive by others that Ada will be a dead end. Fortunately, Irvine Compiler Corp can now be included in the list of compilers that fully supports Ada2005. I hope they have success with their Ada2005 offering.


[2] highlighted a not-for-profit effort

This is good too. The AdaIC website has a more modern look, but content wise it basically looks like a PR page for AdaCore since almost all the news is related to that company.

An AdaForge page has to be more than that and it can be by focusing on what the community is doing. News about project from companies can still be included, but it shouldn't be the main content like AdaIC.

[3] Highlighted projects that were not mission critical/military
    Highlighted Ada's usefulness on multicore machines

   Definitely. Although Ada is great for the safety critical embedded area, it has to appear it is beyond that to gather a larger base. When I keep reading how Ada is mostly used for military and safety critical systems, I can't help but think that must put off a lot of people who may think Ada is not appropriate elsewhere are "boring".


On Tuesday, May 1, 2012 3:56:02 PM UTC-7, Patrick wrote:
> Hi  Riccardo
> 
> I strongly support your suggestion. I am not attacking Adacore or the efforts of others but there are several things that might be frightening off newcomers to the language and your proposal might really help offset this.
> 
> As someone new myself, I have been worried as to why:
> 
> -Many Ada sites have a circa 1995 look to the them
> 
> -Many of these sites talk about Ada 95 furthering the outdated fears
> 
> -A private company seems to be the centre of the Ada and profit has to 
> be their goal 
> 
> -Many of these sites have dead links
> 
> 
> If we had an AdaForge site that was/had:
> 
> -A modern look and feel
> -Highlighted projects that were not mission critical/military
> -Highlighted Ada's usefulness on multicore machines
> -highlighted a not-for-profit effort
> -highlighted projects that were mixed with other languages
> -highlight the open source compiler
> 
> 
> and linked to current resources like books, tutorials etc, it would dispel some of the fears. One thing that helped me overcome by early concerns was the fact that Ada is used in long term projects and projects just launched like the 787 plane. Even if all the Ada libraries die off the GNAT compiler should be maintained for quite some time, perhaps 20+ years ?
> 
> If we posted information like this on the home page it might help stop the FUD.
> 
> I don't consider myself much of a graphic designer but I would be happy to hack together a static site that could generate discussions about the look and feel of the site to come. Nothing would have to be accepted into the new site.
> 
> LuaForge also has a lot of projects in various states of usefulness too. They used Perl for their first LuaForge but it broke. Now they are using a Sputnik backed site:
> http://sputnik.freewisdom.org/
> 
> It's written in Lua. We might have to use another language to drive the site as Ada doesn't seem to have much of a following in the web space. Perhaps later we could redo it with an Ada backend later.
> 
> 
> Anyhow, thanks for bring this up! -Patrick

Re: Adaforge?

[Shark8]

On Tuesday, May 1, 2012 5:16:15 AM UTC-5, mockturtle wrote:
> Dear all,
> I need to run to a conference.  I just wanted to say that I am happy to see this positive feedback.  I will back with you in few days.
> 
> Riccardo

Another thing that might be useful on such a site would be how-to guides for building stuff. I stumbled my way through getting PolyORB* to compile but have yet to get AWS up and running.

*  In hindsight I should have written down _how_ I got it to work... it might have pointed me to what's wrong with what I'm doing on the AWS.

Re: Adaforge?

[Vadim Godunko]

On Apr 28, 6:14 pm, mockturtle <framefri...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I understand that some of us write their own libraries (I see every now and then announcements on this group), so I was wondering if it could be worth to try to collect all this stuff in a centralized place, kind of "rubyforge" for Ruby.  I have a faint memory of a "adaforge.com," but it seems that the domain has no owner currently.  I also have an half a memory of some half-sleeping Ada software repositories, but I could be wrong.
>
There is one active repository:

http://forge.ada-ru.org/

It is used for projects of Ada-Ru community, but everyone are welcome.

Re: Adaforge?

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Wed, 02 May 2012 00:56:02 +0200, Patrick  
<patrick@spellingbeewinnars.org> a écrit:

> As someone new myself, I have been worried as to why:
>
> -Many Ada sites have a circa 1995 look to the them
>
> -Many of these sites talk about Ada 95 furthering the outdated fears

Ada 95 was a major event for Ada, that's the reason why. This ended with  
many people discovering Ada is worth, and with multiple personal  
initiatives to make people learn about Ada. Some of these initiative are  
not maintained any more, but are still there on the web. This does not  
prevent more updated sites to be there too, you just have to add them in  
your bookmarks. Google like long time standing sites, which seems to be  
reference sites for that bot. Another reason why these sites pops‑up  
during your web‑search, is that many topic covered by later Ada versions,  
was already covered by older versions. If you search the web about the  
famous Ada tasking model, there is no issue if you land to an Ada 95 page.  
If you search the web about the to‑be‑famous design by contract in Ada,  
you will land to pages with references to Ada 2012, because prior Ada  
versions did not have this. This may be a matter only if you are seeking  
for web pages about Ada in the large. If you land on an Ada 95 page during  
such a request, then indeed, this may be an issue.

> -A private company seems to be the centre of the Ada and profit has to
> be their goal

Which is a good thing, as it suggest Ada may value at least as much as a  
pound of potatoes. Further more, I feel AdaCore do more for Ada than the  
FSF do, even if I admit FSF as a role too. At least, you have more to wait  
 from AdaCore than from FSF here.

> -Many of these sites have dead links

Because Ada is there since long. The same with many sites about C++, many  
of them have dead links too, and this does not prevent people for learning  
about C++, they just avoid some page. You can't force these sites to  
disappear, nor you can force the creation of so many new sites so that you  
could shadow the old ones.


> If we had an AdaForge site that was/had:
>
> -A modern look and feel
> -Highlighted projects that were not mission critical/military
> -Highlighted Ada's usefulness on multicore machines
> -highlighted a not-for-profit effort
> -highlighted projects that were mixed with other languages
> -highlight the open source compiler

More easy to request than easy to do (especially if you assert profit is  
bad). I don't expect a miracle from an AdaForge or anything similar.  
Better a news site with references to existing projects, and there are  
already sites like this.


-- 
“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.” [1]
“Structured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.” [1]
[1]: Epigrams on Programming — Alan J. — P. Yale University

Re: Adaforge?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Wed, 02 May 2012 07:37:11 +0200, Yannick Duch�ne (Hibou57) wrote:

> Le Wed, 02 May 2012 00:56:02 +0200, Patrick  
> <patrick@spellingbeewinnars.org> a �crit:

>> If we had an AdaForge site that was/had:
>>
>> -A modern look and feel
>> -Highlighted projects that were not mission critical/military
>> -Highlighted Ada's usefulness on multicore machines
>> -highlighted a not-for-profit effort
>> -highlighted projects that were mixed with other languages
>> -highlight the open source compiler
> 
> More easy to request than easy to do (especially if you assert profit is  
> bad).

Yes, this is where the community is expected to show its strength or
weakness.

> I don't expect a miracle from an AdaForge or anything similar.  
> Better a news site with references to existing projects, and there are  
> already sites like this.

To be useful the site should provide a platform for distribution of binary
and ready-to-use releases. People have no time and desire in checking out
sources from CVS.

A great help could be a *maintained* yum and apt downstream repositories
and some equivalent for Windows.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Adaforge?

[Ludovic Brenta]

mockturtle wrote on comp.lang.ada:
> I was wondering if it could be worth to try to collect all
> this stuff in a centralized place, kind of "rubyforge" for
> Ruby

Yes, but it is impractical given the present state of affairs
and there are better ways to spend your precious time.

After reading this thread with great interest I have come to
the following conclusions:

* there is no need for a new web site.  Instead, it is better
  to contribute meaningful content to the the existing AdaIC
  and Ada Programming Wikibook sites.  (The latter already has
  several pages full of links to libraries).

* We don't need another forge.  Existing Ada-centric forges
  already include http://forge.ada-ru.org,
  http://www.ada-france.org:8081, http://codelabs.ch and
  http://scm.ada.cx.  General-purpose forges containing Ada
  sources include Tigris, Berlios, SourceForge.  I probably
  forgot some.  Dmitry, Stephe and a few other individuals host
  their sources on their private web sites.  I think it is better
  to improve the existing forges than to create a new one.

* Each of the aforementioned Ada-centric forges relies on one
  or two dedicated, enthusiastic, skilled volunteers for
  maintenance.  This is bad.  A good idea, for someone skilled
  and interested in forges, is to join one of them as an
  administrator.

* Instead of asking all developers to migrate to the same forge,
  it might be a better idea to ask them to add a link to their
  projects in the Ada wikibook (section 2.6, "Other language
  libraries").  Thus the existing wikibook can serve as the
  central place where people can discover tools and libraries.

* As Dmitry well pointed out, there is a difference between
  hosting sources and hosting binaries.  My stance on this
  matter is probably well-known on this newsgroup.  In short,
  binaries belong in the general-purpose repositories of their
  target platforms; only this can give these binaries the
  visibility they deserve. IOW, the packages should be in the
  official Debian/Fedora/FreeBSD/Cygwin/Slackware/whatever
  repository if one exists.  Windows lacks such a repository, so
  for Windows the fallback is to publish the binaries alongside
  the sources.

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.
The sales manager influences our adaptive Management Information
System, while top-line, granular, style guidelines drive our
blended approach.

Re: Adaforge?

[Manuel Gomez]

On Wednesday, May 2, 2012 12:12:20 PM UTC+2, Ludovic Brenta wrote:
> * there is no need for a new web site.  Instead, it is better
>   to contribute meaningful content to the the existing AdaIC
>   and Ada Programming Wikibook sites.  (The latter already has
>   several pages full of links to libraries).
> 
> * We don't need another forge.  Existing Ada-centric forges
>   already include http://forge.ada-ru.org,
>   http://www.ada-france.org:8081, http://codelabs.ch and
>   http://scm.ada.cx.  General-purpose forges containing Ada
>   sources include Tigris, Berlios, SourceForge.  I probably
>   forgot some.  Dmitry, Stephe and a few other individuals host
>   their sources on their private web sites.  I think it is better
>   to improve the existing forges than to create a new one.

You have surely forgotten GitHub [1].

I try to maintain updated a list of forges and library directories in the Ada wikibook [2]. I have added the Ada-centric forges and Berlios, which sadly only contain three projects. Unfortunately Tigris lacks a way to find Ada projects so I have not added it.

> 
> * Each of the aforementioned Ada-centric forges relies on one
>   or two dedicated, enthusiastic, skilled volunteers for
>   maintenance.  This is bad.  A good idea, for someone skilled
>   and interested in forges, is to join one of them as an
>   administrator.
> 
> * Instead of asking all developers to migrate to the same forge,
>   it might be a better idea to ask them to add a link to their
>   projects in the Ada wikibook (section 2.6, "Other language
>   libraries").  Thus the existing wikibook can serve as the
>   central place where people can discover tools and libraries.

Apart from the Ada Programming Wikibook there is also the Ada Commons wiki [3] which also contains links to several Ada libraries. I think the library directory should be merged into one of the two in order to avoid redundancy. Wikibooks has the advantage of the Wikimedia foundation support and Commons the advantage of a wiki used exclusively for Ada: for example, the article names are flat and simpler. My opinion is that the directory should be merged into Ada Commons and the Ada wikibook should host only the pedagogical content.

A good idea for a project would be to implement a bot for extracting information from other directories or forges in order to populate this unified Ada directory.

Another alternative is to maintain all the Ada projects referenced in oloh [4], since you can search by implementation language there, and has many interesting tools such as the source code analysis.

As you can see there are already enough sites, what we should do is unite efforts, expand the content of current sites and possibly federate contents just like Planet Ada does for blog like entries.

[1] https://github.com/languages/Ada
[2] http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming/Portals
[3] http://commons.ada.cx
[4] http://www.ohloh.net/p?page=3&q=language%3Aada&sort=relevance

Re: Adaforge?

[Randy Brukardt]

"Ludovic Brenta" <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> wrote in message 
news:20524276.2208.1335953540520.JavaMail.geo-discussion-forums@vbqq1...
> mockturtle wrote on comp.lang.ada:
...
> After reading this thread with great interest I have come to
> the following conclusions:
>
> * there is no need for a new web site.  Instead, it is better
>  to contribute meaningful content to the the existing AdaIC
>  and Ada Programming Wikibook sites.  (The latter already has
>  several pages full of links to libraries).

So does the AdaIC site: http://www.adaic.org/ada-resources/tools-libraries/

More accurately, that's one page with links to around seventy libraries and 
library repositories. You can also use the Ada-wide search engine 
(http://www.adaic.org/ada-resources/ada-on-the-web/) to search for 
particular things in *all* of those libraries at once. If anything, the 
problem is that Ada doesn't have enough publicity about these facilities.

                              Randy.

P.S. I do hate all of the AdaCore news on the front page of the AdaIC 
website. We're looking at ways to reduce that, but a significant problem is 
that we hardly ever get any news from anyone else!

Re: Adaforge?

[Stephen Leake]

Shark8 <onewingedshark@gmail.com> writes:

> On Tuesday, May 1, 2012 5:16:15 AM UTC-5, mockturtle wrote:
>> Dear all,
>> I need to run to a conference.  I just wanted to say that I am happy to see this positive feedback.  I will back with you in few days.
>> 
>> Riccardo
>
> Another thing that might be useful on such a site would be how-to guides for building stuff. I stumbled my way through getting PolyORB* to compile but have yet to get AWS up and running.
>
> *  In hindsight I should have written down _how_ I got it to work... it might have pointed me to what's wrong with what I'm doing on the AWS.

When you get AWS working, write it up, and post it on
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming

No need to wait for yet another website!

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: Adaforge?

[Stephen Leake]

mockturtle <framefritti@gmail.com> writes:

> I understand that some of us write their own libraries (I see every
> now and then announcements on this group), so I was wondering if it
> could be worth to try to collect all this stuff in a centralized
> place, kind of "rubyforge" for Ruby. I have a faint memory of a
> "adaforge.com," but it seems that the domain has no owner currently. I
> also have an half a memory of some half-sleeping Ada software
> repositories, but I could be wrong.

A first step would be for everyone to put a link to their library on
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Ada_Programming#Resources

There is no such list now, but it seems like a logical place.

Thoughts? I'll put mine up if someone else agrees.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: Ada wikibooks

[Stephen Leake]

Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:

> * Instead of asking all developers to migrate to the same forge,
>   it might be a better idea to ask them to add a link to their
>   projects in the Ada wikibook (section 2.6, "Other language
>   libraries").  Thus the existing wikibook can serve as the
>   central place where people can discover tools and libraries.

I missed that section on my first try to find an "external Ada
libraries" page on this site; I'd have expected to find it in the
"External Resources" section. What's the protocol on moving that?

I've added SAL; it needs more work.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: Adaforge?

[Stephen Leake]

Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:

> * As Dmitry well pointed out, there is a difference between
>   hosting sources and hosting binaries.  My stance on this
>   matter is probably well-known on this newsgroup.  In short,
>   binaries belong in the general-purpose repositories of their
>   target platforms; only this can give these binaries the
>   visibility they deserve. IOW, the packages should be in the
>   official Debian/Fedora/FreeBSD/Cygwin/Slackware/whatever
>   repository if one exists.  

+1

> Windows lacks such a repository, so for Windows the fallback is to
> publish the binaries alongside the sources.

Actually, there are two for Windows that are quite large, and have
automated package installers (similar to, but less sophisticated than,
Debian's); MinGW (http://www.mingw.org/), and Cygwin
(http://www.cygwin.com/).

Cygwin has GNAT, and it's not hard to write packages for it (not as hard
as Debian, for example :).

I have not tried writing a MinGW package; their installer is brand new.
The sourceforge download page for MinGW is down at the moment, so I
can't check if it has GNAT (it probably does since it's part of gcc, but
I've never looked for it before).

The choice between the two is something of a religious issue :(.

-- 
-- Stephe

Re: Ada wikibooks

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Thu, 03 May 2012 13:20:09 +0100, Stephen Leake wrote:

> Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:
> 
>> * Instead of asking all developers to migrate to the same forge,
>>   it might be a better idea to ask them to add a link to their
>>   projects in the Ada wikibook (section 2.6, "Other language
>>   libraries").  Thus the existing wikibook can serve as the
>>   central place where people can discover tools and libraries.
> 
> I missed that section on my first try to find an "external Ada
> libraries" page on this site; I'd have expected to find it in the
> "External Resources" section. What's the protocol on moving that?

I wonder if that is not it indicative. It seems that the wikibook is way
below the radar of most Ada users.

I also think that learning Ada and a repository of Ada software are
significantly different things which require different approaches in terms
of structure, style, depth etc.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Adaforge?

[Dmitry A. Kazakov]

On Thu, 03 May 2012 13:33:58 +0100, Stephen Leake wrote:

> Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:
> 
>> * As Dmitry well pointed out, there is a difference between
>>   hosting sources and hosting binaries.  My stance on this
>>   matter is probably well-known on this newsgroup.  In short,
>>   binaries belong in the general-purpose repositories of their
>>   target platforms; only this can give these binaries the
>>   visibility they deserve. IOW, the packages should be in the
>>   official Debian/Fedora/FreeBSD/Cygwin/Slackware/whatever
>>   repository if one exists.  
> 
> +1

One of the tasks of AdaForge might be exactly this, advertising Ada
libraries and applications in the corresponding communities (largely
unaware of Ada) and pushing them into the official repositories and
distributions.

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de

Re: Adaforge?

[Ludovic Brenta]

Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote on comp.lang.ada:
> On Thu, 03 May 2012 13:33:58 +0100, Stephen Leake wrote:
> 
>> Ludovic Brenta <ludovic@ludovic-brenta.org> writes:
>> 
>>> * As Dmitry well pointed out, there is a difference between
>>>   hosting sources and hosting binaries.  My stance on this
>>>   matter is probably well-known on this newsgroup.  In short,
>>>   binaries belong in the general-purpose repositories of their
>>>   target platforms; only this can give these binaries the
>>>   visibility they deserve. IOW, the packages should be in the
>>>   official Debian/Fedora/FreeBSD/Cygwin/Slackware/whatever
>>>   repository if one exists.  
>> 
>> +1
> 
> One of the tasks of AdaForge might be exactly this, advertising Ada
> libraries and applications in the corresponding communities (largely
> unaware of Ada) and pushing them into the official repositories and
> distributions.

That's what the GNU Ada Project on SourceForge is all about.  As I
said, there is no need for a new forge; there is need for more quality
content in existing forges.

http://sf.net/projects/gnuada

-- 
Ludovic Brenta.

News on the AdaIC website? (Was: Re: Adaforge?)

[Jacob Sparre Andersen]

Randy Brukardt wrote:

> P.S. I do hate all of the AdaCore news on the front page of the AdaIC
> website. We're looking at ways to reduce that, but a significant
> problem is that we hardly ever get any news from anyone else!

What are the requirements for news items to be worth a mention on the
AdaIC website?  Might some of the news on <http://planet.ada.cx/> be
worth replicating?

Greetings,

Jacob
-- 
"I have no prejudice except against Pakistanis, which is normal."

Re: News on the AdaIC website?

[Simon Wright]

Jacob Sparre Andersen <sparre@nbi.dk> writes:

> Randy Brukardt wrote:
>
>> P.S. I do hate all of the AdaCore news on the front page of the AdaIC
>> website. We're looking at ways to reduce that, but a significant
>> problem is that we hardly ever get any news from anyone else!
>
> What are the requirements for news items to be worth a mention on the
> AdaIC website?  Might some of the news on <http://planet.ada.cx/> be
> worth replicating?

Looking down the list, there's Alog version 0.4 .. so it's not all
AdaCore!

Re: Ada wikibooks

[Manuel Gomez]

On Thursday, May 3, 2012 2:20:09 PM UTC+2, Stephen Leake wrote:
> Ludovic Brenta writes:
> 
> > * Instead of asking all developers to migrate to the same forge,
> >   it might be a better idea to ask them to add a link to their
> >   projects in the Ada wikibook (section 2.6, "Other language
> >   libraries").  Thus the existing wikibook can serve as the
> >   central place where people can discover tools and libraries.
> 
> I missed that section on my first try to find an "external Ada
> libraries" page on this site; I'd have expected to find it in the
> "External Resources" section. What's the protocol on moving that?

You can use the Discussion tab associated to each page for proposing changes. You can also be bold and edit it on your own.
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Wikibooks:Be_bold

I'm not sure of whether it belongs to the "External Resources" section or main body where it is currently located, but the subsection should probably be named "External Ada Libraries" rather than "Other Language Libraries".

Re: News on the AdaIC website? (Was: Re: Adaforge?)

[Randy Brukardt]

"Jacob Sparre Andersen" <sparre@nbi.dk> wrote in message 
news:8762cd9yc8.fsf_-_@adaheads.sparre-andersen.dk...
> Randy Brukardt wrote:
>
>> P.S. I do hate all of the AdaCore news on the front page of the AdaIC
>> website. We're looking at ways to reduce that, but a significant
>> problem is that we hardly ever get any news from anyone else!
>
> What are the requirements for news items to be worth a mention on the
> AdaIC website?  Might some of the news on <http://planet.ada.cx/> be
> worth replicating?

That's part of the trouble, we've never been able to get clear agreement 
within the ARA what should be allowed and what should not. There is a 
legitimate concern about publisizing too much for non-members, which reduces 
the value of ARA membership to those companies. When Ann and I were in 
charge, we tended to report all member news, but only significant news 
events for other companies and organizations (that is, no "minor updates" or 
"third call for papers"). I think that's still pretty much the case.

One of the reasons I started hanging out here was to gather possible news 
items, and I still forward anything interesting to the AdaIC webmaster list. 
But it is better still if the newsmakers themselves do this; just send any 
news items to webmaster@adaic.org and the right people will see them (and 
decide if they ought to be posted).

                                          Randy.

Re: News on the AdaIC website? (Was: Re: Adaforge?)

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Fri, 04 May 2012 00:22:00 +0200, Randy Brukardt <randy@rrsoftware.com>  
a écrit:

> "Jacob Sparre Andersen" <sparre@nbi.dk> wrote in message
> news:8762cd9yc8.fsf_-_@adaheads.sparre-andersen.dk...
>> Randy Brukardt wrote:
>>
>>> P.S. I do hate all of the AdaCore news on the front page of the AdaIC
>>> website. We're looking at ways to reduce that, but a significant
>>> problem is that we hardly ever get any news from anyone else!
>>
>> What are the requirements for news items to be worth a mention on the
>> AdaIC website?  Might some of the news on <http://planet.ada.cx/> be
>> worth replicating?
>
> That's part of the trouble, we've never been able to get clear agreement
> within the ARA what should be allowed and what should not. There is a
> legitimate concern about publisizing too much for non-members, which  
> reduces
> the value of ARA membership to those companies. When Ann and I were in
> charge, we tended to report all member news, but only significant news
> events for other companies and organizations (that is, no "minor  
> updates" or
> "third call for papers"). I think that's still pretty much the case.

What about licensing? Any restrictions there?

-- 
“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.” [1]
“Structured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.” [1]
[1]: Epigrams on Programming — Alan J. — P. Yale University

Re: Ada wikibooks

[Jacob Sparre Andersen]

Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:

> I also think that learning Ada and a repository of Ada software are
> significantly different things which require different approaches in
> terms of structure, style, depth etc.

Yes.

The AdaIC list may not be user-editable, but it seems much more clear to
me.

Greetings,

Jacob
-- 
"When we cite authors we cite their demonstrations, not their names"
                                                           -- Pascal

Re: News on the AdaIC website? (Was: Re: Adaforge?)

[Randy Brukardt]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 983 bytes --]

"Yannick Duch�ne (Hibou57)" <yannick_duchene@yahoo.fr> wrote in message 
news:op.wdq7jczoule2fv@douda-yannick...
Le Fri, 04 May 2012 00:22:00 +0200, Randy Brukardt <randy@rrsoftware.com>
a �crit:

...
>> That's part of the trouble, we've never been able to get clear agreement
>> within the ARA what should be allowed and what should not. There is a
>> legitimate concern about publisizing too much for non-members, which 
>> reduces
>> the value of ARA membership to those companies. When Ann and I were in
>> charge, we tended to report all member news, but only significant news
>> events for other companies and organizations (that is, no "minor updates" 
>> or
>> "third call for papers"). I think that's still pretty much the case.
>
>What about licensing? Any restrictions there?

Huh? Licensing for news? I'd hope that any news people send out is for the 
general public to see without restriction; I can't imagine wanting it 
otherwise.

                     Randy.

Re: Ada wikibooks

[Randy Brukardt]

"Jacob Sparre Andersen" <sparre@nbi.dk> wrote in message 
news:87sjfg8mpp.fsf@adaheads.sparre-andersen.dk...
> Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
>
>> I also think that learning Ada and a repository of Ada software are
>> significantly different things which require different approaches in
>> terms of structure, style, depth etc.
>
> Yes.
>
> The AdaIC list may not be user-editable, but it seems much more clear to
> me.

And you *can* send listings/listing corrections to webmaster@adaic.org, and 
they're (eventually) get posted. Or you can post them here, and I'll vacuum 
them up and send them to the webmaster list (a less certain technique, of 
course).

                              Randy.

Re: News on the AdaIC website? (Was: Re: Adaforge?)

[Yannick Duchêne (Hibou57)]

Le Fri, 04 May 2012 09:01:02 +0200, Randy Brukardt <randy@rrsoftware.com>  
a écrit:
>> What about licensing? Any restrictions there?
>
> Huh? Licensing for news?

My fault, an error. Don't care.


-- 
“Syntactic sugar causes cancer of the semi-colons.” [1]
“Structured Programming supports the law of the excluded muddle.” [1]
[1]: Epigrams on Programming — Alan J. — P. Yale University

Re: News on the AdaIC website? (Was: Re: Adaforge?)

[Micronian Coder]

Hi,

It is understandable that there is a desire for ARA membership to mean something, but because it "appears" that AdaCore is the only company that is active, it easily leads to what I said earlier about AdaIC being another PR page for AdaCore (to be fair, yes there are some non-AdaCore news).

I often visit the websites of other companies, including yours, but there is normally zero news of anything happening. I still think it is good to see ARA and companies involved present on AdaIC because it shows that there is still commercial support for Ada. However, without other companies putting in more effort into sharing what they are doing on AdaIC, AdaIC should focus more on non-member activity. If not, it will seem less attractive as a place to turn to for Ada matters because the accumulation of news and info is so slow. I know I hardly go to AdaIC anymore because of these reasons. I normally visit places like Ada Reddit and comp.lang.ada because there is far more activity. That's a shame. When AdaIC got it's new look, I really thought that was an indication of an effort to make it "the" Ada page to visit (note: of course, nothing on the webpage indicated that was the intention).

If AdaIC is really open to submissions about non-member activity as you stated then I'll be glad to submit info as I come across it, even if it is already duplicated else where (ie. Ada Reddit). That would help AdaIC seem more "alive".

-Micronian Coder 


On Thursday, May 3, 2012 3:22:00 PM UTC-7, Randy Brukardt wrote:
> 
> That's part of the trouble, we've never been able to get clear agreement 
> within the ARA what should be allowed and what should not. There is a 
> legitimate concern about publisizing too much for non-members, which reduces 
> the value of ARA membership to those companies. When Ann and I were in 
> charge, we tended to report all member news, but only significant news 
> events for other companies and organizations (that is, no "minor updates" or 
> "third call for papers"). I think that's still pretty much the case.
> 
> One of the reasons I started hanging out here was to gather possible news 
> items, and I still forward anything interesting to the AdaIC webmaster list. 
> But it is better still if the newsmakers themselves do this; just send any 
> news items to webmaster@adaic.org and the right people will see them (and 
> decide if they ought to be posted).
> 
>                                           Randy.

Re: News on the AdaIC website? (Was: Re: Adaforge?)

[Micronian Coder]

Hmm, I just thought of an idea after making my post. What about AdaIC dividing the news page of AdaIC to have both a "What ARA Members Are Doing" section and a "Ada Community News" section for non-member info? That way, the ARA news can stay visible rather than get pushed away as non-member info gets posted more regularly.

Just a thought.

-Micronian Coder


On Friday, May 4, 2012 1:22:40 AM UTC-7, Micronian Coder wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> It is understandable that there is a desire for ARA membership to mean something, but because it "appears" that AdaCore is the only company that is active, it easily leads to what I said earlier about AdaIC being another PR page for AdaCore (to be fair, yes there are some non-AdaCore news).
> 
> I often visit the websites of other companies, including yours, but there is normally zero news of anything happening. I still think it is good to see ARA and companies involved present on AdaIC because it shows that there is still commercial support for Ada. However, without other companies putting in more effort into sharing what they are doing on AdaIC, AdaIC should focus more on non-member activity. If not, it will seem less attractive as a place to turn to for Ada matters because the accumulation of news and info is so slow. I know I hardly go to AdaIC anymore because of these reasons. I normally visit places like Ada Reddit and comp.lang.ada because there is far more activity. That's a shame. When AdaIC got it's new look, I really thought that was an indication of an effort to make it "the" Ada page to visit (note: of course, nothing on the webpage indicated that was the intention).
> 
> If AdaIC is really open to submissions about non-member activity as you stated then I'll be glad to submit info as I come across it, even if it is already duplicated else where (ie. Ada Reddit). That would help AdaIC seem more "alive".
> 
> -Micronian Coder 
> 
> 

Re: News on the AdaIC website? (Was: Re: Adaforge?)

[Marc C]

On Friday, May 4, 2012 3:22:40 AM UTC-5, Micronian Coder wrote:
> I normally visit places like Ada Reddit and comp.lang.ada because there is far more activity.

Thanks for saving me the effort of doing the Ada Reddit plug :-)

(On second thought, here's the link:  http://www.reddit.com/r/ada)

Links to software, repositories, news, announcements, questions, rants of all (Ada) types welcome there.

Marc A. Criley
Ada Sub-reddit moderator